On my "home" rails of the New York & Long Branch all the station stops were on the main line. The line was mostly two tracks and there were no true passing sidings. Some of the stations such as Sea Girt were just sheds while others were larger and more elaborate.
What was interesting to me when I rode the Rocky Mountaineer from Vancouver to Banff was how all the stations and platforms on the CP were on the mainline and the passing sidings were around the station stops. I since learned that this factored into the decision to reroute the VIA Canadian over the CN mainline in 1991 as the CN stations were all off the mainline with the exception of a few stops in rural Ontario. In Canada freight has priority over passenger trains.
My photo from the summer of 1982 at Little Silver station when I was 13. Hard to see the southbound platform in this photo, but it was the same as the platform seen on the northbound track.
